While I Slept

"……."

Was this the price of living on a regular schedule?

The clock hands that never stopped their relentless ticking had already crept past four in the morning. My eyelids were dropping of their own accord, heavy beyond endurance. On any ordinary night I would have been in bed and deep under before midnight. On top of that, I had already finished a twelve-hour stream and gone straight into a twenty-four-hour all-nighter, so the strain was that much worse. In practical terms, I was already past the seventeen-hour mark of continuous broadcasting.

I'm losing it. I used to pull overtime like it was nothing and thought I had decent stamina…

I had completely forgotten that quietly grinding through paperwork alone as an office worker and keeping your energy cranked high for thousands of viewers were two entirely different kinds of exhaustion. My throat, especially, needed careful handling — and the warning signals were already telling me I was past the danger line.

I'm hitting my limit. Did something go wrong? The last reply said it was almost finished…

It was clearly time to play the eight-hour sleep card. But the work I had requested from Bebe-ttang still had not arrived. The last message had clearly said it was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nearly complete and only needed finishing touches.

"……."

Even at this hour, there were still mining addicts and building addicts who refused to sleep and kept staging protests in chat. I let out a long sigh and was still turning over how to buy a little more time when the message I had been waiting for finally arrived.

I cheered silently over and over. D-did this mean I could finally sleep?

All over again, I found myself in awe of Kim Hak-do's stamina for streaming forty hours straight without a single wink of sleep. A twenty-four-hour broadcast really was no joke. Of course, the difficulty had been cranked higher because I had already done twelve hours and then started this one immediately after — but even so.

Thinking about it again now, that Vice-Chairman was clearly a menace of a human being.

The menace of a Vice-Chairman had already fled about two hours earlier after leaving that donation message as his parting shot.

Just you wait. I will not forget this. I will pay this back with interest.

"Whew. I'm going to stop here for now and get some sleep. It's four in the morning, so I just need to be back by noon, right?"

The viewers did not seem to be expecting much. A few Virtual streamers had already run twenty-four-hour all-nighters before and left nothing but a static background image on screen, thoroughly souring their audiences. That incident had given human streamers' fans a rare chance to puff out their chests and sneer. No matter how you dressed it up, they said, a flatboard was still just a flatboard.

And right around that same time, I had also been scattering multiple twenty-four-hour stream tickets through the roulette. The last thing I wanted was for other Virtuals to catch flak because of me.

So I thought it through carefully. What was the right approach in a situation like this?

In the end, the core of it was simple: show the viewers the act of sleeping. Wait, that was all? That wasn't hard at all. A hurdle of this size was nothing to a regressor. I already had the solution from knowledge of the past.

That very day I had contacted Bebe-ttang and requested a piece of work — something with a very simple motion function built in…

"Hwaaah! I'm so tired I can't hold on any longer. Give me a second to cover the screen while I change."

I swapped the avatar's outfit to the pink polka-dot pajamas I had prepared in advance. A moment later the chat flooded with walls of "SO CUTE." If the Vice-Chairman had still been around, he would absolutely have typed something snide about pajamas that didn't match her age.

"Alright, everyone — thanks for sticking with the stream this late. I'll be back before noon. Bye for now~!"

Thinking of every other Virtual streamer's twenty-four-hour all-nighter they had ever seen, the viewers fully expected the avatar to vanish from the screen any second. But I was still right there on camera. And before they knew it, a futon had been laid out in the center of the frame. The viewers watching it unfold spammed the chat with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠walls of "???"

"Upsy-daisy! This new pillow and blanket are so soft and nice."

I carefully controlled the avatar's position until it looked like she had slipped snugly under the covers. Then I pulled out the hidden "it item" — a cute cat-shaped sleep mask — and put it on. With that, every preparation for sleep was complete.

With this much effort, even the human streamers' fans who usually rejected Virtuals would not be able to trash it so casually. Confirming the friendly flood of "lmao" filling the chat, I switched off my monitor with peace of mind.

Whew. Now I really needed to wash up and sleep. It had been an exhausting day.

Beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep—!

"Ugh… I'm dying."

I opened my eyes to the alarm I had set for eleven-thirty. I was definitely learning that a woman's stamina was different from a man's. To be this wrecked after just one day.

"Aaah, aaaah!"

The one silver lining was that my throat seemed to be holding up reasonably well. Health came first, no matter what. I hurried to the bathroom, washed up, did some light stretches, and made sure to eat a solid meal. Times like these were exactly when you needed to load up on nutrients to keep going. Still, knowing there were only about eleven hours left was a real comfort. At least I had crossed the halfway point.

"Alright! Just a little more. Let's push through."

I did feel bad for the Company employees. We had agreed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to gather and work from nine, so this felt like I was ditching for a full three hours. But health came first — there was no helping it. I would make up for this guilty feeling later, without fail.

"…… The computer is furious."

I had left it running all day, and the tower was making an alarming racket. It was a decently powerful machine, but the Virtual program was pretty heavy. Add a stream that had been running for hours on top of that, and of course it would take a toll. Hang in there a little longer, computer.

With a wry smile, I turned the monitor back on.

"Mm, good. It held up fine while I was asleep."

On the screen, a black-haired, red-eyed beautiful girl character in pink pajamas lay fast asleep under the covers, still wearing her cat sleep mask. Just like last night, exactly the same… wait. Something was off about the numbers.

When I had gone to sleep in the early morning, the viewer count had been around fifteen hundred. I woke up and it was suddenly 7,587? I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

"……."

What on earth had been spreading through the communities while I was asleep? Without meaning to, I had pulled massive aggro.